Ponderings from the spiny, desert plant

goodgrouper

goodgrouper

tryingtobeabettergrouper
Ponderings from the spiny, desert plant otherwise known as Cactus

As I reviewed the Cactus match report today for the first time, it set the rusty wheels in my head in motion, partly because of the anguish of it all acting like oil to loosen the rust. The other part due to being a number cruncher and statistic junkie. So after several gasps at the large numbers in my column, I began to look at other's numbers and I found something interesting. Now I'll warn you I have no scientific data to support my ramblings here and this is theory (and a bad one at that) but I'm bored tonight so here she goes.

Sunday, as some of you have heard, was a nightmare both for shooters and especially the target crew. But there were some who seemed to be shooting on a different range at a different time in a galaxy far far away. When the majority of shooters were fighting tooth and nail to stay under 1.5" groups, these other guys kept it together and even managed to shoot some beauties.
I was astonished at the results of Murdica and Costa and others. They put up some tough numbers to beat in very tough conditions. But what astonished me even more was how many HOF and other top competitors struggled as much as myself (this being my sophomore year in close range benchrest) to keep 5 shots in the box let alone in anything resembling a group. So I began to ask a few questions and sent out a few emails concerning the "tornado doping". I recieved interesting responses.

A common reply was "waiting for the headwind to come back and only shooting in that condition". Wait a minute, a headwind? Someone actually got a headwind? And it stuck around long enough to actually fire a shot? I watched my flags pretty closely for a long time and I never got any sort of a headwind. What were these guys talking about? My flags were swishing back and forth from 9 to 11 o'clock like the back end of the General Lee on a gravel road but they never went 12 o'clock. And my flag's sailtails were three or four times overpowered by the intesity of the wind so it almost made them useless.

Then it dawned on me, perhaps the location of your bench on Sunday made the difference. Guys who reported headwinds were usually on the west side of the range. That makes sense. As the wind accelerated up over the burm from the west, it must have eddied around and gave brief headwinds on those western shooting lanes. Again, I have no proof of this other than what some have told me. I was nowhere near the west end of the range on Sunday so I can't say for sure. But I do know this: I was on bench 45 Sunday and that gave me a mid to mid east location on the field and I don't recall ever seeing anything but green on my Hood flags all day.
And I know something else, everyone around me shooting on the same target holder had groups that looked an awful lot like mine! Horizontal slots cut in the target about 2" long! Some more and some slightly less. And no matter what I tried, no matter how close I watched the flags, no matter how fast I rattled off my string, nothing and I mean NOTHING on God's green earth was going to let me shoot smaller groups. I tried every trick in the book that I know of and even used the last three matches of the LV200 to try things I have never done before just to see if it would shoot better groups. I even shot one match never once looking through my scope or adjusting my rifle--just shooting like a machine gun as fast as I could and that group was almost exactly the same size groups as the ones where I actually tried to "shoot". Ok, well maybe a little bigger.

I hope he doesn't mind me sharing this, but Bryn Borras was on the bench next to me and I watched him plunk down the small group for 200 on match one which measured .180". Now, with a group like that, I know his gun was in tune and he is a veteran of this game. In fact, he told me he had attended numerous Cactus Classics. So in other words, given conditions that were of this earth (which they were for the first match), he would have handed me my butt with my chair attached. But it was not to be on the black Sabbath as I call it. Our groups match for match were within thousandths of each other and neither one of us could get them down where we wanted no matter what we did. We struggled just to keep five between the last ring and the mothball. Even Bryn's wind probes were bottomed out!

So it was just a little too suspicious that our numbers were so close. A little too close for a coincidence. And so was the shapes and sizes of the other five or six guys shooting at our target board. We just seemed to be in a lane that was nearly impossible to shoot a tight one. Anyhow, it make my brain feel better to think that! But honestly, I don't think sub 1" groups were possible in those lanes on that day no matter who you happened to be.

Now, this is just theory remember. I have no scientific basis for it. This is simply stuff I dreamed up by looking at the match report and talking to people all over the range. I know guys who's guns were WAY out of tune on Saturday and moved close to the burm on Sunday and kicked some serious tail and the numbers don't lie. This is of course not an intention to take away from those who cleaned house on black Sabbath. They earned those groups for sure. I'm simply thinking out loud here that they found a favorable condition and used it which is exactly what we're supposed to do. But I'm merely theorizing that some of the other lanes of fire never got a condition that was condusive to groups that looked like a rifle instead of a shotgun pattern. But I'm also sure that someone will point out someone else who was
on the east side of the range or smack dab in the middle who never shot a group over 1" and my whole pet theory that lets me sleep at night will be obliterated like a brain cell in Jessica Simpson's head. Oh well, that is what benchrest is all about!
 
Last edited:
Your conspiracy theory falls apart.

Bart Sauter was shooting on bench 57 and I was on bench 56. Both are on the far east end of the range. Bart posted a .3697 for 3rd place in the AM and I posted a .3922 for 5th in the AM. We both shot the headwind. Mind you it was never around long enough to get off more than 1 shot, but, every time it came flipping through we would pull the trigger.

Lawrence Weisdorn
 
Lanes on the firing line...

Yep, I love to watch NHRA Drag Racing on TV... it seems like no track on the entire tour has lanes that are equal...sure makes it hard to cheer for my favorite car/driver when they get the "bad" lane...
I guess it would be easier in benchrest matches if we had a person to go out and evaluate the track before each relay to tell the shooters what the little quirks and nuances were for each lane..:D
 
4 real again

So a registered match doesn't require rotation after each group?WOW!!!
 
Good Grouper

At our first Region Match at Tomball, we had conditions that were not as strong mph wise as what they had at The Cactus, but just as difficult to shoot. None other than Charles Huckeba, who shot just to my left all week end, commented that it was about as tough as he had ever seen.
And we were shooting 10-shot Unlimited. As you can amagine, the groups were rather large. The aggs got into the "fours" pretty quick.
That is, for the majority. There were a few of us that did get a handle on things enough to at least stay in the high two to low three agg range.
In my opinion, the shooters that were having the most trouble were the ones who tried to "shoot the push". When it is coming accross at 25 mph, and switching before you can even react, that is a very dangerous thing to do. It can result in those .500+ groups at 100, and 1.750+ at 200. If you can read it, and get a little lucky, you might end upon top. That was rare.
I found that a "neutral" condition would come around often enough to get 10 shots down range. Mind you, I was taking the full 12 minutes for each group. That Neutral could best be described as when some of the flags were green, some orange, at the same time. If this occured with the tails not too far up, I would shoot. I more or less did this the entire week end. You had to really pay attention to the flags to the left and right to be sure that something wasn't coming accross that would bite you before the brain said "fire".
You will not shoot itty bitty groups doing this. But,if your Rifle is working, (to do this, it must be), at the end of the week end you would have survived by not putting a shot clear accross the paper.
Here in the Gulf Coast Region, we are blessed with some real first class S-it Holes to shoot in. I have had World Class Shooters, after a rough day at Tomball, actually tell me, "I am never coming back to this hell hole again". Of course, they do.
We have ranges such as Seymour, where it usually blows hard, but steady, that are more readable than the ranges such as Denton and Tomball,where you get that swirling mess all of the time that makes you want to take up bowling as a hobby.
What we are talking about here is one reason I get amused at posters who ponificate about all of the equipment nuances of Benchrest, (tuners, indexing barrels, stopped muzzles, and most of the stuff discussed on this forum), who don't have a clue as to way the game is really played. They forget that we actually do have to sit down and shoot these darned things, and we have to shoot in what ever is out there at that moment in time.
Heck, sometimes it all comes down to who did the least amount of damage through the entire week end........jackie
 
jackie schmidt said:
At our first Region Match at Tomball, we had conditions that were not as strong mph wise as what they had at The Cactus, but just as difficult to shoot. None other than Charles Huckeba, who shot just to my left all week end, commented that it was about as tough as he had ever seen.
And we were shooting 10-shot Unlimited. As you can amagine, the groups were rather large. The aggs got into the "fours" pretty quick.
That is, for the majority. There were a few of us that did get a handle on things enough to at least stay in the high two to low three agg range.
In my opinion, the shooters that were having the most trouble were the ones who tried to "shoot the push". When it is coming accross at 25 mph, and switching before you can even react, that is a very dangerous thing to do. It can result in those .500+ groups at 100, and 1.750+ at 200. If you can read it, and get a little lucky, you might end upon top. That was rare.
I found that a "neutral" condition would come around often enough to get 10 shots down range. Mind you, I was taking the full 12 minutes for each group. That Neutral could best be described as when some of the flags were green, some orange, at the same time. If this occured with the tails not too far up, I would shoot. I more or less did this the entire week end. You had to really pay attention to the flags to the left and right to be sure that something wasn't coming accross that would bite you before the brain said "fire".
You will not shoot itty bitty groups doing this. But,if your Rifle is working, (to do this, it must be), at the end of the week end you would have survived by not putting a shot clear accross the paper.
Here in the Gulf Coast Region, we are blessed with some real first class S-it Holes to shoot in. I have had World Class Shooters, after a rough day at Tomball, actually tell me, "I am never coming back to this hell hole again". Of course, they do.
We have ranges such as Seymour, where it usually blows hard, but steady, that are more readable than the ranges such as Denton and Tomball,where you get that swirling mess all of the time that makes you want to take up bowling as a hobby.
What we are talking about here is one reason I get amused at posters who ponificate about all of the equipment nuances of Benchrest, (tuners, indexing barrels, stopped muzzles, and most of the stuff discussed on this forum), who don't have a clue as to way the game is really played. They forget that we actually do have to sit down and shoot these darned things, and we have to shoot in what ever is out there at that moment in time.
Heck, sometimes it all comes down to who did the least amount of damage through the entire week end........jackie
Click to expand...

Jackie,
Exactly right. I think we all try to make our rifles and ammo as accurately as possible and rightfully so. This is the one thing we can control.
What we can't control is what mother nature hands us on any given day. The only way to try to handle this is with practice. And practice in the bad conditions so that you know what to expect when it gets horrible at a match.
When you practice in good conditions you are testing the gun. When you practice in bad conditions , you are testing yourself.
Gene
 
Lawrence W. said:
Bart Sauter was shooting on bench 57 and I was on bench 56. Both are on the far east end of the range. Bart posted a .3697 for 3rd place in the AM and I posted a .3922 for 5th in the AM. We both shot the headwind. Mind you it was never around long enough to get off more than 1 shot, but, every time it came flipping through we would pull the trigger.

Lawrence Weisdorn
Click to expand...


Ok. The headwind part of my theory seems to be viable. But your geography on the windy day presents a problem. Or does it? Perhaps the wind jutted up against the east burm and paralleled it to the benches? Come to think of it, my mentor was on bench 60 and he was getting bullets to actually touch way over there on the last bench to the east. Well, that is until the wind blew his gun out of his hand and it smacked down on the bench scope first!
Anyway, he and I have similiar shooting styles and on the 10 hour drive home together, he conveyed the idea that the conditions were manageable where he was at and where I was at, I felt they were impossible. ANd I know our perceptions are usually pretty similiar.

So, I'm modifying the theory to include both west and east corners of the field produced headwinds that if the shooter figured them out early enough, he could have put together some good groups by waiting and shooting one shot off in that condition. How else can so many good shooters in the middle of the field have horizontal slots across the paper 2" wide resembling 100 yard groups fired at most ranges the week before the deer hunt opens? That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
 
heres a little teaser to keep yer brain ticking at nights thinking about those super plum fairys floating around with bencrest rifles. another theroy could be your flags you said they were hoods wich means a duble vane design. i have been looking in to buying flags for short and long range shooting. i have been told that dual vanes overrotate like a chopper blade and wont show a quick switch fast enoguh for the trigger man to say whoooo there son, stop shooting. were the guys around you using hoods or other doulbe vanes? what were the top shooters using? just trying to give you another piece of your possible puzzle. im not kocking hoods or anything else, just been hearing that single vanes with the balls on them to give to a degree of angle work just fine without whipping like a dog in the wind. i think i'm gonna get some grahm flags as they look pretty good. don't feel bad about finishing in last place, i watch this board and match scores and everyone has a bad day. best thing after getting you butt in chair handed to you is to go home and take some meds so those fairys quit bugging you and you can move on an learn, thats what this forums all about. one last question about your mentor can i ask who he is, i need some help myself.:rolleyes: LenH

sorry about my spelling im no good at tiny keyboards
 
LenH said:
heres a little teaser to keep yer brain ticking at nights thinking about those super plum fairys floating around with bencrest rifles. another theroy could be your flags you said they were hoods wich means a duble vane design. i have been looking in to buying flags for short and long range shooting. i have been told that dual vanes overrotate like a chopper blade and wont show a quick switch fast enoguh for the trigger man to say whoooo there son, stop shooting. were the guys around you using hoods or other doulbe vanes? what were the top shooters using? just trying to give you another piece of your possible puzzle. im not kocking hoods or anything else, just been hearing that single vanes with the balls on them to give to a degree of angle work just fine without whipping like a dog in the wind. i think i'm gonna get some grahm flags as they look pretty good. don't feel bad about finishing in last place, i watch this board and match scores and everyone has a bad day. best thing after getting you butt in chair handed to you is to go home and take some meds so those fairys quit bugging you and you can move on an learn, thats what this forums all about. one last question about your mentor can i ask who he is, i need some help myself.:rolleyes: LenH

sorry about my spelling im no good at tiny keyboards
Click to expand...


I don't think there is any noticeable difference in double vane or single vane flags in conditions like we had. Many others were using Hoods but I don't know what the winners used. After all, you just get used to how yours move and compare them to each other. If you like Graham, then you should buy them and never look back.

I hear you about the plum fairies in benchrest.

btw, I didn't finish last place. In fact, I was on the first and second page of competitors most of the weekend until the very end when I started experimenting in the tornado.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top